Cloud Computing Plan Your Voyage into the Cloud. Then Take Off.

Businesses and organizations look to cloud computing to meet a variety of IT challenges. They need to serve people who want extremely fast, on-demand computing and mobile access to all their computing needs, within a highly secure environment.

Cloud computing is a practical, valuable model to meet these challenges. Because it relies on internet-based computing that provides the sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economy of scale, it applies to many use cases, including:

In particular, CMA believes that the high-value areas of cloud computing include content delivery systems, disaster recovery infrastructure, and test and development environments. To assist organizations looking to benefit from these high-value areas of the cloud, CMA offers the following:

Low cost of entry: No need to buy or maintain application or other tools

Upgrades are automatically available

You won’t risk falling behind due to unavailable or out-of-date resources

High levels of accessibility and availability. The cloud is highly reliable

Inherently scalable and elastic: You can grow or contract quickly to meet planned or unforeseen business fluctuations

Device and location independence

Although the complexity of security needs increase with the cloud, security can improve due to centralization of data and increased security-focused resources

Cloud Services

CMA is involved in all three recognized cloud computing service models: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.

Software as a Service (SaaS): CMA’s products are available over the cloud, including our Human Resources Information System (HRISnet, which assists more than 50 government agencies with HR management, many over the cloud). Clients can use our web-based application via diverse devices. CMA manages the infrastructure and platforms that run the applications. You get high-quality access when and where you want it.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): In this service, clients can develop and run their software solutions on a cloud platform without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers. We offer a pre-built, pre-configured, packaged enterprise class platform purpose build for Oracle RAC clusters, called MicroTerabyte and a unique offloading platform engineered to capitalize on HP’s Vertica Analytics Platform, V3.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Clients control the operations of the infrastructure, but not the infrastructure itself in this service model. You can replace your physical equipment (servers, storage, and networking) and replace with CMA’s cloud-based infrastructure, and not worry about physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backdrop, and more.

All the cloud environments designed and implemented by CMA are secure, flexible, and elastic. CMA offers:

Evaluating traditional services to make them “cloud ready”

Readiness assessments

Operational evaluations

Private & corporate cloud implementation

Hybrid cloud implementation

Security monitoring

Cloud operations management

Meeting the Challenges of the Cloud

Cloud computing comes with some challenges, challenges that CMA is prepared to face.

Those interested in exploring cloud computing are often concerned by limited customization options. CMA is highly successful in the area of Systems Integration, and have vast amounts of experience matching up client needs to best-of-breed, integrated solutions. Our private and hybrid cloud approach ensures that the cloud computing solution we offer you will fulfill your needs.

Security is another challenge to cloud computing. The top security threats in the cloud are insecure interfaces and APIs, data loss and leakage, and hardware failure. CMA has been providing IT solutions for more than 30 years, and we embed pervasive and cooperative security within all the enterprise platforms we deploy.

CMA’s data centers comply with and operate under advanced security protocols. As an NLETS (National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System) strategic partner, CMA undergoes a security audit by the NLETS ISO. The protocols for this audit are based on:

FBI NCIC/CJIS security standards

FIPS-140 policies for encryption

The FBI Rules of Behavior

NIST Computer Security Protocols (logical and physical)

CMA also undergoes an annual HIPAA/HITECH security audit and a MARS-E security audit by an independent certified auditor. The audits encompass:

PII/PHI policies and procedures

NYS Cyber security policies and procedures

NIST 800-53 security controls

FIPS 140-2 verified/certified devices and software modules

Extensive Identity and Access management (both single and multi-factor authentication)

CMA Security resource policies require:

A dedicated on-site full time CISO and Security Compliance Officer.

Prior to any level of either physical or logical access being granted to a CMA data center, each distinct resource is required to have a 10-point background check and have successfully completed and passed advanced training in security awareness and security protocols.